Cesare Terranova was the predecessor of judge Rocco Chinnici, who created the Antimafia Pool, a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together sharing information to diffuse responsibility and to prevent one person from becoming the sole institutional memory and solitary target, like Terranova.

Cesare Terranova was born on 25 August 1921, in Petralia Sottana, a small town located at about 70 km southeast of Palermo, Sicily.

[2] Despite Terranova’s efforts, the sentence of the Trial of the 114 on 22 December 1968, by the Court in Catanzaro was a disappointment, and many prominent mafiosi were acquitted.

The undeniable contacts of the La Barbera mafiosi with the one who was the first citizen of Palermo ... constitute a confirmation of ... the infiltration of the Mafia in several sectors of public life.

Terranova made little attempt to hide the fact that his ambition was to bring Luciano Leggio, the boss of the Corleone Mafia Family – known as the Corleonesi – to justice.

The Corleonesi were indicted in the Trial of the 114 related to the First Mafia War that resulted in the Ciaculli Massacre, that was also prepared by Terranova.

Terranova together with PCI deputy Pio La Torre wrote the 1976 minority report of the Antimafia Commission, which pointed to links between the Mafia and prominent politicians, in particular of the Christian Democrat party (DC - Democrazia Cristiana).

[7] After seven years in Rome, at the end of the legislature in June 1979, Cesare Terranova asked to be re-instated in the judiciary.

"[9] However, on 25 September 1979, then aged fifty-eight, Terranova was shot to death in his car, along with his driver, policeman Lenin Mancuso, who acted as his bodyguard.

The combination of his investigative skills and his recent political connections in Rome would have made Terranova an even more formidable Mafia opponent than before.

[15] Leggio was charged with ordering Terranova's murder, but was acquitted for lack of evidence, both in the first trial, which was held in Reggio Calabria in 1983, and in 1986, in the appeal process.

[8] In 1997, the prosecution office in Reggio Calabria re-opened the murder investigation after the pentiti Francesco Di Carlo and Gaspare Mutolo named the mafiosi Giuseppe Giacomo Gambino, Vincenzo Puccio, Giuseppe Madonia and Leoluca Bagarella as the material killers.

[14] On 15 January 2000, Salvatore Riina, Bernardo Brusca, Bernardo Provenzano, Francesco Madonia, Pippo Calò, Nenè Geraci and Michele Greco, all members of the Sicilian Mafia Commission at the time of the murder, were convicted to life sentences for ordering the murder of Terranova and Mancuso.

After 25 years, in October 2004, the Supreme Court confirmed the life sentences for Totò Riina, Michele Greco, Nenè Geraci and Francesco Madonia.

[19] He determined that there was "only one Mafia, neither old or young, neither good nor bad," but "efficient and dangerous, divided into clusters or groups or 'families,' or more accurate still, 'cosche.

He was the predecessor of judge Rocco Chinnici, who succeeded Terranova as the chief examining magistrate at the Court in Palermo and who also became a victim of a Mafia attack in July 1983.

Chinnici created the Antimafia Pool, a group of investigating magistrates who closely worked together to diffuse responsibility and to prevent one person from becoming a solitary target, like Terranova.